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Exclusive: Media Heroes Recognized @Janefonda @womensmediacntr

Via Scoop.it – Today’s Transmedia WomanExclusive: Media Heroes Recognized By Marianne Schnall December 5, 2011 To help envision a more equitable landscape, last week the WMC 2011 Women’s Media Awards celebrated today’s powerful and visible women in media. WMC founder Jane Fonda (left) with awards emcee Wanda Sykes; photo: Jenny Warburg It’s tempting to be passive in our consumption of media. But that’s a huge mistake. One of the most powerful cultural and economic forces at work today, popular media tends to determine our understanding of who we are and our place in the world. Yet it presents a picture that is rarely complete, and likely to remain that way when less than 12 percent of news globally reflects women and their stories, and when women only hold 3 percent of “clout” positions in the media. Last week, at the 2011 Women’s Media Center Awards in New York City, Gloria Steinem put it this way: “The media is where we get our ideas of what is normal, what is OK, what is possible for us, what we can become.” She described the media marketplace as “the current campfire. For all the time that human beings have been on Earth, we have been sitting around a campfire telling our stories. And if one person could not tell their story they were not part of the group, people didn’t learn from them, and the circle was incomplete.” Steinem, who cofounded the WMC in 2004 along with Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan, said a laser-like focus on equality in the media should have happened earlier but that many feminists felt “turned off by the corporate media.” It took a while, she said “for us to understand that we could and should transform the media.” To that end, the WMC awards honored CNN’s Soledad O’Brien (Broadcast Journalism Award), CBS correspondent Lara Logan (Whole Truth Award), Frontier Communications Chair and CEO Maggie Wilderotter (Business Media Award), Howard University student Yanique Richards (Carol Jenkins Young Journalist Award), and Sady Doyle, founder of tigerbeatdown.com, who was chosen for the WMC Social Media Award out of 27 nominees by visitors to the WMC website. Jane Fonda described those honored as “women who have the guts to stand up and speak as women. And that gives other women courage. We have to do more and more of that. Because if women will stand up, things will change.” Read Full Story: http://womensmediacenter.com/blog/2011/12/exclusive-media-heroes-recognized/Via womensmediacenter.com